


And Baby Makes Three

by frankenbolt



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Blood Kink, Blood Play, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Comedy, F/M, Family, Light BDSM, NSFW in later chapters, Penis In Vagina Sex, Pregnancy, Rating May Change, Reporting, Smut, Suggestive Themes, Tentacles, The Raft Prison (Marvel), Unplanned Pregnancy, Work In Progress, obviously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-08-22 07:55:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16593881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankenbolt/pseuds/frankenbolt
Summary: If you've been together for twenty five, gruesome, murderous, and slutty years, the question of kids comes up. Thankfully, Cletus Kasady and Frances Barrison had their little taste of family life during the events of Maximum Carnage.But life tends to find a way, even when you refuse to follow a plan.





	1. Background Check

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't plan on writing this. I didn't want to write this. I have several other fics that could have been my first published work.  
> But I guess that's the nature of chaos, ain't it babes?

In 1993, a riot took place in New York City, that lasted the span of 2 weeks, leaving hundreds dead or critically injured.

 

Conclusively we can trace the point of origin back to the Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, which attributes the cause as “Criminal Negligence on the part of (now deceased) staff members.”

 

Always read your patient's file notes, folks. A simple routine procedure, such as an injection or taking a blood sample, can lead to some unfortunate side effects.

 

Infection from a dirty needle can be fatal.

 

And so can taking a sample from a patient whose blood is permanently fused with an alien symbiote.

 

Cletus Kasady, one of New York’s very own homegrown psychopaths, already had a history of murder and violent behaviour before he’d fused with the offspring of the Venom symbiote. According to his files, he’d witnessed his father beating his mother at a very early age in his development, and had been abused by his family on numerous occasions. He was taken into care when he pushed his grandmother down the stairs, and stayed in the system until he was 16.

 

He’d never had a chance at being anything other than what he is.

 

The same could  be said of Frances Barrison, also known as her alter-ego, Shriek. An overweight child, she’d suffered cruel attacks from her mother, and turned to drugs in her teen years as a runaway. When she encountered Cloak, the mysterious shadowy hero who is often seen with his partner Dagger, she emerged with the ability to manipulate sound waves into powerful sonic blasts and the strange ability to incite riots in the innocent populace and feed on the manic dark energy of others.

 

Needless to say, that Barrison and Kasady were a match made in hell.

 

Much has been made of the incident, the horror that unfurled, and the fallout that continues to this very day. Papers have been written, and the key players have been incarcerated, killed off, literally shot into space, all to no avail.

 

Academic papers have all focused on the individuals, but not of the fascinating, symbiotic (no pun intended) relationship between them. Reports indicate that they’d formed a faux family with several other highly public villians at the time of the incident. But with Barrison as the maternal figurehead, and Kasady as the parental head of the clan.

 

There have been quotes to indicate the pair were in fact, romantically involved. The work of Doctor Tanis Nieves has been invaluable for this report and I have cited her work extensively, when possible. Unfortunately, because of the extenuating circumstances, I have been unable to conduct any interviews with her on the subject of their relationship.

 

Being boned with an Alien symbiote of your own tends to lead to questionable third party sources.

 

The remaining notes of Doctor Ashley Kafka, the former founder and head of Ravencroft herself, also proved imountable evidence for this report, but again, she was unavailable for interview, due to her unfortunate death not long after the Incident.

 

For all it’s failings, it is regrettable that Ravencroft was shut down, if only for the wealth of information that was left to rot.

 

Well, until I found it of course.

 

The only remaining sources for first hand experience with dealing with Barrison and Kasady are of course, Spider-Man, Venom and a host of other neardwells.

 

Short of committing a serious crime, or posting an ad in the failing Daily Bugle, my only remaining option appears to be the one I had no intention of doing.

 

Travelling to the Vault and Raft, and conducting an interview with Shriek and Carnage myself.

 

Or I would have, if that was were they were.

 

It would seem that once again, in a world full of superheroes and heroines, that neither are actually registered as prisoners.

 

Strange, considering the international database on the subject, considers them incarcerated in those two locations. But no. I dug around numerous encrypted files and it would appear that someone has very cleverly covered up an escape, exactly seven months ago, to the day of my writing this introduction.

 

When asked for official comment on the subject, I was hung up on.

 

When asked in person for official comment on the subject I was thrown in a cell for a night and released without my notes and my phone wiped clean.

 

Honestly, I think I miss that the most about Ravencroft- at least they were polite.

 

Any sane person would have washed their hands at this point- this is the part of any horror story were the intrepid reporter travels to an abandoned Asylum or Orphanage and gets dismembered for their thirst for a story.

 

Except of course, that I’d already been to Ravencroft and both the Hoboken Orphanarium for Girls and the ruins of the Brooklyn Orphanage for Boys "St. Estes Home for Boys", in preparation for my report and it was clear that whilst these buildings hold their fair share of ghosts and ghouls, that neither held Barrison or Kasady.

 

In fact the girls orphanage is now several condos. Startling high rent, even for gentrified Hoboken. Not the sort of place Shriek would make a home for herself, especially if she was on the run with her long lost boyfriend.

 

No, in order to find them, I’d need to discover some sort of pattern of criminal behaviour. Neither are particularly prone to laying low, they’ve made big showy displays of destruction and murder their calling cards, together or apart.

 

Except, nothing.

 

Nothing resembling Shriek’s inciting riots or sonic blasts.

 

Nothing resembling the many, MANY sickening symbiote trademark destruction that Carnage is so famous for.

 

I was very much ready to give up after 3 months solid of monitoring news alerts and police bulletins, because this behaviour, if this was indication of them laying low, is unprecedented in either of their case histories.

 

If they were out at all. After all, we’d all assumed Kasady had died before, back when he’d been shot into space. And then he bounded back onto earth with robotic legs (Good one, Michael Hall, smart move).

 

And then they were discovered.

 

And it was worse than we’d ever expected.


	2. Buttmunch, huh?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Frances finds herself answering some invasive questions and Cletus fails at coming up with a decent insult under pressure.

_Eight Months ago_

 

Frances stared blearily at the blank expanse of cold tiled floor in front of her, itching at the collar strapped around her neck.

 

Red marks already marred white starchy skin from where she’d tried to claw the damn thing off.

 

“Clever little piece of jewellery that.” The guard had scoffed when he’d thrown her in her glass cell. “It’ll stop ya making a racket. We got enough riots in here without you screamin’ your head off too.”

 

She hadn’t asked.

 

She hadn’t said much of anything since she was arrested. Not during the speedy trial, not during the journey to this dump. If Doctor Nieves had been here she’d have made some pithy little comment about that “not being in her usual parameters of behaviour.”

 

_No shit sherlock, ya girl’s not feelin’ all her usual sparkling self right this second. Alright?!_

 

Distantly there was a thud and a rousing scream of two dozen inmates hurling themselves at one another. If Frances had felt like herself she’d let the soothing sounds of destruction wash away the nausea building at the pit of her throat, but all the muffled clanging did was edge the bile closer and closer up out of her throat until-

 

“BLARGH!!”

 

“OH NASTY! HEY, HEY DIPSHITS, LOOKS LIKE THE GOTH CLOWN CHICK MESSED HERSELF! HAHAHA!”

 

Frances didn’t even have the energy to glare at the genius who’d shouted at her from two cells down before she passed out.

 

-

 

_Just another fucking Tuesday._

 

_**Is it Tuesday?** _

 

_Does it even matter?_

 

_**I don’t know, you always said that people are more prone to irritation on Tuesdays, Cletus Kasady.** _

 

_Must be why I’m so antsy._

 

**_You are always Antsy, Cletus Kasady._ **

 

_If that ain’t the fucking truth. Say, why don’t all the prisoners have beards in here?_

 

**_What?_ **

 

_Well no-one’s allowed razors, right? You’d think they’d all have big fuck off beards. Like santa or some shit._

 

**_You know why they won’t give us a razor._ **

 

_Because I can’t grow a beard for shit?_

 

**_Ha._ **

 

Cletus’ Tuesday, as it was, was remarkably better than Frances’. He hadn’t vomited for a week after-all. But then again, being strapped down 23 hours a day tends limits one’s interactions with the world.

 

He also had a remarkable view of the cell blocks from his lofty position on the top floor of which ever prison this was (he never bothered to listen to find out. It didn’t matter, he’d be out soon anyway). All the better to watch when (Tuesdays) prison riot broke out.

 

_Oh, this might be it!_

 

A small man, with purple skin and a lizard tail chose that moment to shank a taller, flabbier gentleman with a skinhead in what constituted the prison’s communal dining area far, far below.

 

_And we’re off!_

 

Cletus watched in glee as the build up (Tuesday) tension broke out, wriggling against the straps holding him down. The maelstrom of bodies occasionally being broken up by bursts of light as the guards started shocking the prisoners apart.

 

The burning sensation of the leather chafing against his forearms made him shiver, giving him pause, and crane his neck to the far far end of the prison. She was right...right over...

 

**_Oh here we go._ **

 

Cletus ignored the symbiote’s wry comment, and grinned. She’d get a kick of this, even with that dumb collar on her neck. She always loved a good riot.

 

He couldn’t find her.

 

_Where’s Shriek?_

 

The symbiote gave pause, seemingly interested at their others concern. Furling around in the serial killer’s blood, Cletus cringed as his hearing was suddenly amplified, able to hear all of the prison at once.

 

“TAKE THAT SHIT FOR BRAINS-”

 

“-YOU SON OF A-”

 

“-EAK IT UP YOU PIECE OF-”

 

**“BLARGH!!”**

 

“-LIKE THE GOTH CLOWN CHICK MESSED HERSELF! HAHAHA!-”

 

With a jolt his hearing returned to normal, and he stared down at the white, black and yellow jumpsuited form of his...of his…

 

**_Girlfriend?~_ **

 

...his Shriek, collapsed on the floor of her glass cell.

 

And stared.

 

And stared.

 

Until.

 

“H-h-HEY! YOU.”

 

The guards at his door didn’t even bother turning around.

 

“I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME BUTTMUNCH, LISTEN TO ME.”

 

One of the guards gave a muffled chuckle and muttered “Buttmunch?”

 

Cletus felt his cheeks flame red at this, the hair at the back of his neck slicking with perspiration in embarrassment.

 

“LISTEN. T-there’s a girl down there...far side of the prison. She’s passed out in her own vomit. Go fucking help her out, or fucking get someone to see to her.”

 

“Why should we?”

 

“Because she could fucking die?!”

 

“And since when do you give a shit about who lives and who dies?”

 

**_He has you there, Cletus Kasady._ **

 

“BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T I SWEAR YOURS IS THE FIRST THROAT I’LL RIP OUT WITH MY BARE TEETH, SYMBIOTE OR NOT YOU GNARLY PIECE OF--”

 

The other guard’s radio bleeped, a staticky radio message relaying.

 

“ _BZZZT- We gotta female inmate, unconscious, Cellblock Delta, Cell 7D, Inmate Number 993, Need medical assistance and restraints. Repeat-BBZZZZZT-_ ”

 

The guards just stared at one another, and then back at Cletus, still beet red and mouth still hanging open ready to hurl another threat.

 

The first guard just shrugged and turned away from the man strapped to the wall, intent on ignoring his charge.

 

“There, you got your wish, Buttmunch.”

 

-

 

Frances awoke, several hours later to leather around her wrists, and an IV in her arm.

 

_Not the first time I’ve woken up to a needle...heh…_

 

Blinking away the haze behind her eyes, she recognised the female doctor at the foot of her bed from her incoming examination.

 

She looked young...too young to be doing this job. Squirrelly brown hair in a messy bun atop her nutty little brain. Big bambi eyes behind too big glasses.

 

_They ain’t kiddin’ when they claim there’s a doctor shortage. Hirin’ precious little girls to work in shitty places like this._

 

Frances’ eyes panned over the sweet young doctor to the heavily armed faceless guards behind her.

 

_That's right big boys, you keep this one safe._

 

“Oh! Ms Barrison, you’re awake!” Nutty Doctor came forward, her hands trembling on her clipboard.

 

“Ya mean this ain’t a dream doc?” _Shit, my voice sounds like I gargled a bass players nuts and downed two bottles of whiskey._

 

“I’m afraid not. Do you know what day it is?”

 

“M’gonna guess it’s Tuesday. Got no real evidence, considerin’ you guys don’t give us so much as a lousy calendar in this dump.”

 

Nutty Doctor blinked and tilted her head. “Um. Yes. It is Tuesday, Ms Barrison.”

 

Frances let her head drop back against the pillow. “Thought as much. Could I get some water?”

 

After helping her choke down some room temperature water, Nutty Doctor gingerly sat on a chair next to the bed, her guards standing either side of her in protection.

 

“Ms Barrison, I have some questions for you if you don’t-”

 

“I do mind.”

 

Gruffly, the guard on the left grunted “Answer the Doctor’s questions Inmate.” He hefted his meaty fist and gestured to the control rod towards her shock collar.

 

After eyeing the device, Frances finally bit out “Fine, Doc. But 'm already strapped down. I ain’t answering shit with these dudes listenin’ in on my gory details.”

 

Nutty Doctor nodded sheepishly, and after much protesting from the guards, she finally made them wait in the hall. But not without them pushing the shock control rod into her hands.

 

Once they’d been squared away, Nutty Doctor sat back in her chair, and smiled sheepishly at Frances.

 

“I’m sorry about them. Now. Your file indicates you’ve used drugs extensively throughout the years--”

 

“I’ll stop you right there doc.” Frances grit out. “I haven’t used since I got bleached and mutated. Who needs drugs when you can get off on the screams of terror of others, literally. Better high than any needle, powder or junk. And.” Huffing out a pained laugh. “It’s free.”

 

“So the last time was-”

 

“Early 90s, kiddo.”

 

“...If you don’t mind me asking, just how old are you?”

 

Frances slowly turned her head and deadpanned at the young doctor. “You can’t just work that out from my file, doc?”

 

The Nutty Doctor just shrank in her chair and frowned embarrassed at her clipboard, flipping indignantly through the pages. “You...just don’t look 48.”

 

“Chalk it up to another brilliant symptom of the mutation, Doc.”

 

Frances watched her continue to flip through the pages and scribble down frustrated notes. “By all accounts I just...it seems very peculiar that you should be able to...I mean considering your past history with drugs and your age you’re...an unlikely candidate for--”

 

“Spit it out kiddo.”

 

Nutty Doctor grimaced.

 

“When was the last time you had sexual intercourse, Ms Barrison?”

 

Licking her chapped lips in the re-filtered air, Frances tried to think. “I guess...the morning we got caught? Yeah, I guess that’s right...hard to tell really.”

 

The doctor winced again. “It’s hard to te- how often were you intimate that you can’t remember?”

 

Chuckling darkly, Frances just turned back to face the ceiling. “Got me a man who just gets the urge, ya know? Insatiable that one.”

 

Luckily, Frances missed the miserable stare the little doctor gave her. “And I doubt that you used protection?”

 

“We don’t keep firearms in the house, honey.”

 

Rolling her eyes the doctor continued. “And this is just the one sexual partner?”

 

“He doesn’t believe in that Sesame Street bullshit, no sharing.”

 

It was with a deep sigh and a shrug to a very conspicuous two way mirror that the Doctor stood up. “That was all the questions I had, Ms Barrison.”

 

-

 

It was only hours later, in the dark of the prison hospital ward that Frances finally worked out what that line of questioning was about.

 

I would argue, that even I, as a lowly reporter, know that letting someone with such a well documented Maternal Complex know that they could be a mother is a bad idea.

 

But hindsight is 20-20. Right?


	3. Motel California

_Ten months ago, in a seedy motel somewhere in California._

 

“Stop squirming.”

 

“Fuck you, stop squeezing so hard.”

 

“You want to do this yourself? You’ll fuck it up, just hold still.”

 

“You’re going to break something.”

 

“M’not, I just don’t want you messing my hard work up.”

 

“I’ve done this a zillion times without you, ya know.”

 

“And that’s why yer not on a tier one bad guy, babes, your look has gone to shit. THERE. Finished.”

 

Frances held her leg out, squinting at her toes in the limited amount of light afforded by the motel lamp light. All ten nails painted perfectly black and glossy with the wet polish. She huffed and curled her arms over her chest, resolutely refusing to look at the man still holding her other leg hostage.

 

Cletus was right of course, that her hands still shook from years of unchecked drug abuse, even decades after the fact. It was either chipped nails or suck it up and go to a Salon.

 

Breaking out of jail or ditching a bottom rung henchman job just to get your nails done? Seemed like a waste, even for her. So usually she just went without.

 

Unless Cletus was the one to break her out. 

 

The freak that he was, he usually insisted he do the meaningless task for her. She'd never bothered to ask why. 

 

They weren't big on asking why. 

 

_More like, why not, am I right?_

 

That didn’t mean she had to give him the satisfaction. Even with him leering at her from under short ginger lashes, just waiting for her to thank him.

 

She’d claw those pretty green eyeballs out of his dumb smug face and make earrings.

 

But then she’d end up with smudged polish and a pissed boyfriend, wouldn’t she?

 

So instead she rolled over onto her stomach, yanked her leg from his grasp, and poked idly at the small rectangular screen on the bed, with her tongue between her teeth, to ignore him.

 

“Babes?”

 

She couldn’t work this stupid thing. Years locked up, and then running and killing in between hadn’t left either of them much time to get used to the leaps in technology. She’d been on the verge of working out how to download movies when Cletus had slammed his way back into the motel room, take-out in his arms and started on his rant about how “Pizza sucks down here, we ought to head north again.”

 

“C’mon, babbbbeees-”

 

All Frances wanted was a dumb slasher movie, the kind they’d watched together back in the day, during what the newspapers called "The New York Incident".Just one stupid shitty low budget gore fest was all she was asking for, but all this little rectangle was offering was piece of shit high gloss mainstream films-

 

“Put the computer down and talk to meeee, Frances.”

 

“I’m waitin’ for them to dry, dumbass.”

 

“The bottle says ‘60 Seconds’. M’pretty sure you’ve had your time to sulk.”

 

“M’not sulking, I’m tryin’ to find something for us to watch.”

 

Cletus hummed, and tapped his fingers along the arch of her foot, smirking when he saw the pale blue jump of an artery below the pale skin. Mesmerised by the jerk of blood flowing through a thick vein, he began mapping it upwards until it started creeping up her calf.

 

His train of thought predictably leapt to how delicate the tendons in her ankles were, with a rush of how one quick snap and a tear and all that delicious life would come pouring out, bone splintering and-

 

His gaze was drawn up to her amused smile, and whilst the bloodlust didn’t exactly disappear (this was Cletus Kasady after all, Carnage incarnate), he felt it pool in the pit of his stomach.

 

And before he could help himself, looking at Shriek, his girl, halo’d in the dim motel light, the flashing neon of the blue sign out front he felt a swell of affection, morphing into a feeling he could much more easily embrace- possession.

 

“What’s the matter, slugger?” An innocent enough question, but they both knew what he’d been thinking. And not just because she’d felt the sudden spike in dark emotion that he’d had.

 

She’d confessed, in quiet, sticky nights holed up in various broken down cars and mobile homes, that she’d often have the same impulse to dive those (chipped, unless he had something to say about it) nails through his flesh and dig out his heart. Never mind the alien gushing through his veins, she always held back.

 

So, he did too.

 

It hadn’t always been like that.

 

When they’d first met, all his experience with women had been limited to a not-quite girlfriend (dead of course now) and that had been it. The bravado and male-ego (as one Ravencroft quack had tried to reason with him) diminished by a constant onslaught of media on an “impressionable mind”.

 

Funny way to say “Tits on Tv screwed up my boner for anything but Violence”.

 

Kafka had been quick to point that out one of the many times she’d had sessions with him. “Your imagination is too vivid to match up to the real thing, Cletus. You’ve convinced yourself no-one is good enough for you, and conversely you aren’t good enough for anyone else. Apart from the symbiote...which appears to be a common theme between those bonded with the parasite-”

 

“I’m not fuckin Brock, Doc.” A tremulous giggle muffled by the padded walls of his cell. “Pops thinks he an’ his symbiote are soul mates, if you can believe that shit. I ain’t like that.”

 

“Then what are you to each other?”

 

“There ain’t no me, or it, or whatever. It’s me. Just me.”

 

**_Or so you want them to believe._ **

 

“There is only, CARNAGE, baby! No other, just me. No room, No room, clean cups move down, get the fucking POINT?!”

 

Kafka had only stared, protected by the thick wall of glass between the two of them, before her voice resonated through the speaker.

 

“So what about Frances? Shriek?”

 

He’d clammed up then.

 

“The reports indicated you were calling yourselves “Husband and Wife”, during the attack on New York last year. Was this purely a dramatic display? More of a cult aesthetic you were trying on, or was there something more to it?”

 

It wasn’t her business. She couldn't just put Shriek and Carnage into two neat little psychobabble boxes and chalk it all up to them "playin' house." Like they were two broken little kids tryin' on adult airs and sucking face. It just wasn't like that.

It was more than that.

 

So he’d never gone… the whole way with a girl. So what? Nothing mattered anyway, nothing but the slaughter, the flames, the pure destruction of everything this world had denied him as a child. Now as a man, with the power to take everything and anything he wanted, fucking just wasn’t the cards. He had too much to do, to see, to kill!

 

But then he’d met Shriek.

 

Everything Cletus knew about conventional relationships, the scant few so-called “positive” models of how adults are supposed to deal with love, or lust or whatever, none of them seemed to last.

 

His dear old Dad rained a metal pipe so hard down into Mom’s skull that Cletus could swear sometimes he could still feel the warm embrace of her blood on his skin sometimes.

 

The workers at the orphanage always screwed around when they thought the kids were asleep, but he’d seen enough of the scrawny young girls who worked there crying over bruises the next morning to know they didn’t get any real joy out of the act.

 

All that was left was the garbage that was basic cable of the 80's and his beloved scant few VHS tapes once he’d escaped the hell-hole that was the Brooklyn Boys Orphanage.

 

There was never a reason presented for why sex was worth it. Jerkin' it seemed to serve the same purpose without the work of involving another person.

Until of course, he ripped down that heavily reinforced steel door in Ravencroft and found himself face to face with the only person worth a moment's consideration. 

Someone who not only found sense in the chaos, and enjoyed it almost as much as he did, but she damn well thrived on it. Every moment she spent with him, she became more alive and he found he liked how she seemed to thrive on his company. They understood each other. So he shared his action with her. Even the symbiote was amused by how her powers fed on his mayhem. 

 

_**A parasite for the parasite.** _

 


	4. Black is for the Night-time...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's first time is special...even when you're pushing 30 and you've broken your partner out of an Institution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating change, my dudes!

_ 300 months ago, New York City, In some seedy abandoned Prop Warehouse... _

 

When he finally let the symbiote recede back into his pores, one of the nights their little family had decided to take a quick breather, he’d snapped the door closed on the others, he’d never even thought that he might have company.

 

_ That was fun. _

 

**_It was, Cletus Kasady. Just think what we can do when our body has healed._ **

 

_ You sure we can’t just, juice it up and get back out there? _

 

**_Regeneration should take about five cycles...seven hours to complete. Then the fun can continue._ **

 

_ Fiiiine. Right, quick nap and then right back out there. _

 

He’d let himself fall back on a faintly crunchy feeling mattress in the backroom of the warehouse Shriek had found for them to hide out in. He could feel the springs press into one of the surely bruised if not broken ribs he’d received from the last fight, and bit back a pained grunt of, as the sharp dulled into a sensation he could enjoy.

 

“So that’s whatcha look like under all that fun stuff, huh?”

 

Blearily opening an eye, Cletus found her standing at the foot of the mattress, an intrigued look in her eyes, head cocked in thought. He raised an eyebrow at her.

 

“Not what you were expectin’, baby girl?”

 

She’d snorted at that. “That you were a fire-crotch? No. Gotta say that is a surprise. Not a bad one. Kinda suits ya.”

 

“Red is kinda my ‘thing’. What’re you doing back here? Thought you were keepin’ an eye out over our spawn?”

 

Shrugging, she’d dropped down onto the mattress and started unzipping her boots. That caught his attention. Miles of pale flesh suddenly appeared in the moonlight shining through the large industrial windows above them.

 

“Dopple’s on guard mode. I can’t stand in these fuckin’ things anymore. Spike heels are a bitch, Carny.”

 

The spiked leather hit the floor with a dull thud, and not for the first time, he thanked his symbiote for the simplicity of their arrangement. 

 

He was so busy watching the smooth expanse of her legs stretching in relief that he missed her unclicking the belt from around her waist. His eyes snapped up to her face, his hand shooting up to her throat, symbiote creeping around his hand to extend blood red claws at the delicate flesh at her jaw.

 

“Now, whatcha think you’re doing there, Shriek?”

 

She didn’t even flinch, almost making him clench his fingers more firmly into the skin. Instead a smirk stretched across her black stained lips.

 

“Thought you might want to seal our deal, Carnage.”

 

“Come again?”

 

She actually giggled at that, a sharp little noise that made the madness all the more apparent on her face. “Lemme see if I can’t manage a first time, then we’ll decide on another, huh?”

 

Cletus snarled and pushed the sharp point of his thumb into her jugular. She purred. “What?”

 

“I want to fuck you.”

 

He let go abruptly.

 

“You...want...huh?”

 

She actually seemed concerned, like what he had said was more shocking than her admission she wanted him. “You alright honey? You’re kinda matchin’ your other self right now.”

 

Cletus could feel the sick feeling of embarrassment licking up his spine, and he hated that he actually felt flustered. He dealt with it much in the same way he always did any uncomfortable feeling. He had her pinned to the mattress, a blade of symbiote pressed against her neck, the face of carnage sliding back over his own, ignoring his other’s whine for the need to rest.

 

“Girl you really  _ are _ fucked up, ain’tcha, wanting to screw with death like this.”

 

Shriek had stretched her spine, leaning into the cut, a long pleased sigh tumbling from her lips. “I ain’t screwing  _ with _ you, I want to screw  _ you _ .”

 

He snarled at her, jaws and fangs stretching the bones and muscle of his human body as a thick tongue like tendril snaked over the thin gush of blood that had escaped the cut on her neck. Shriek shivered, in what was in his mind, a poor imitation of pleasure.

 

It was a shame. He’d liked her. She was in it for the same reasons, he’d thought. But she was just messing with him, just like everyone else. Pretending.

 

**_What if she isn’t?_ **

 

The tired snap of his other made Cletus pause. A clear thought in the maelstrom of raw emotion. His free hand roughly jerked her legs apart, searching for the apex of her thighs.

 

Drenched.

 

The shock made him freeze and miss the girlish mewl of pleasure below him, and the eventual huff of irritation, as she shoved him over onto his back, her chipped nails peeling the standard issue scrubs of the Ravencroft jumpsuit aside, until finally his brain was jump started back into gear.

 

“F-FUCK.”

 

“I’m getting to it honey.”

 

Shriek curled her fist around his length and considered the man under her. For someone so masterful only a few hours ago, he looked like a school boy right now. The symbiote had curled back into his pores, leaving the endearingly freckled skin on his face flushed and dewy, eyes screwed shut and mouth open in a gasp.

 

Was he a virgin? The thought made her bite her lip. How sweet! Everything about him like this was adorable. She thumbed the slit at the head of his dick and watched as he clenched his fists into a tight ball. Total V card on this one.

 

Cletus’ found his found almost blissfully blank, unable to think of anything but “ _ holy shit holy shit someone’s actually doin’ this to me _ !” The palms of his hands stung from his nails digging in too hard. He didn’t move, for fear of her stopping. Shit what if he came too soon? How would he be able to look her in the face if he came right that second, like he was desperately trying not to. The thought of thick ropes of his spend landing across the black spandex of her costume, pooling in the ghost white of her cleavage, and her cruel eyes laughing at him, inexplicably made him moan into the crook of his elbow. The shame of it made him buck his hips needily up into her fist.

 

**_Learning a lot about yourself today, aren’t you, Cletus Kasady?_ ** The tired chuckle of his other was barely heard over the mile a minute thoughts bouncing around his overstimulated skull.

 

Frances cooed down at him, stopping only to spit into her palm, and increase her speed. “Don’t we look delicious, all pink and needy, let mama take care of you baby, don’t hold back, we got all the time in the world.”

 

“T-the fuck you...doin’ to me, you crazy bitch?” He panted, hating just how his voice whined that last word as she twisted her fist. 

 

“Lookin’ after my man.” She leaned over him and peeled his arm away from his face. “Look at me, baby.” It was a command, and a very distant part of him wanted to roar that he was in charge here- but every other inch drowned it out with a need to get to the end, to finish, to please her-

 

“Look at me, Cletus.”

 

He choked, and stared up at her with shocked green eyes. It was the first time she’d said his name, and he was struck dumb with the thought how her blue  _ her _ eyes were, echoing the vast starless sky above them.

 

“You want to come don’t you?”

 

He nodded dumbly at her, a pathetic whimper escaping his lips as he writhed under her, desperate for her to continue. Her hand had slowed down to a slow, barely there stroke.

 

“Use your words, baby.”

 

“I...I want...SHIT--” She’d squeezed her thumb and forefinger tight around the base of his cock, interrupting his train of thought.

 

“You want what, honey? To come on my tits? In my mouth? The way you’re squirmin’ around under me, I don’t think you’ve got it in you to come inside me.” There was that persistent lick of shame that crawled down the length of his spine, leaving him a shivering mess, pressing himself up against her.

 

The challenge in her voice didn’t escape him however, and he hissed back “I want to cum in you. I’m GOING to cum in you- MOTHERFUC-”

 

Another squeeze and a slap to his face and he was seeing stars.

 

“Show, don’t tell me, Cletus.”

 

The thrill of his name on her lips drove him upwards, slamming her back onto the mattress, ripping her spandex aside for him to stare down at her glistening sex. He drug two fingers over her, remembering vaguely enough from the one high-school sex-ed lesson he hadn’t ditched, vaguely were he was supposed to touch. He hesitated for a moment before he impatiently pulled her own hand down to join his.

 

“Show me how to do this, if you want it so badly.”

 

Shriek bit back the sarcastic retort, a remarkable feat considering how pent up she was. She guided his fingers down where she wanted him to be, and directed his thumb to her clit. Not that she needed it, but she got the feeling he needed a moment to collect himself. The rough drag of his calloused thumb over her bundle of nerves made her arch her back.

 

Cletus for his part was transfixed. Grainy scrambled cable porn had nothing on this. Warm, wet, alive. It was much like that feeling when he felt a knife plunge into a body. The satisfying pull of inside her was amazing, like he was being sucked in with every rough plunge of his digits inside.

 

_ Kafka is goin’ to have a field day with me if we ever get caught.  _

 

He groaned and palmed his weeping erection. He wanted. He could just take it, but. That niggling, clawing feeling to please this beautifully twisted woman under him that was still there. 

 

Luckily for him, Shriek took pity. She shifted around until they were panting, fumbling to complete the act. She perched above him again, slicing her nails through the remains of his Ravencroft jumpsuit and undershirt, until there was only her spandex separating them, the slick of his body sliding against her costume leaving him a shivering mess, clutching her hips desperately to not just shove her down onto him. 

 

“Good boy.” Her lips crushed against his, just as his tip slid inside her at last, making her legs quiver. He was moaning into her mouth, her hands clutching into the short ginger curls atop his head. She’d thought to go slow, as much as she wanted it harder, but as soon as her nails scraped softly against his scalp, he’d quivered under her touch, breaking the kiss to pant into her neck.

 

“I’ll...I’ll show you good, baby girl.”

 

Shriek barely had time to react, he’d pushed her onto her back, pulled her legs up to her shoulders, and started pounding into her. She felt claws gripping her legs, spikes of pleasure shooting up from where the points pierced her flesh. When she finally opened her eyes, tendrils of red gore where wrapping around her limbs, tight in some places, caressing in others, leaving her a mess of stimulation that had her wailing.

 

“Carny...wha- what--”

 

“Cletus” He hissed down at her, snapping his hips against hers. He was going too fast, inexperience showing, but the intensity and the grind of his tendrils against her clit was making up for it. “It’s Cletus. I want. I want that to be what you shriek for me, baby.”

 

She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his, even when he leaned over her and needily pulled another brutal kiss from her lips. Not even when a tendril snuck into her shirt and pulled her breasts free, her legs pressing them together. He’d grinned and leant down to drag an elongated tentacle of a tongue through her cleavage.

 

The sight of him like this was overwhelming. And even though he’d climaxed before her, with a loud shout, he’d kept the tendrils working, until she wrenched her head back and screamed his name.

 

**_Can we sleep yet, Cletus Kasady?_ **

 

_...Yeah.  _

 

He had no more quips, and his mind was quiet. His other sank thankfully into sleep, curling back into his slowly drying skin. Shriek lay next to him, her arms and legs tangled with his. He was staring up at the sun dawning through the industrial window above them.

 

“Fuck it, I always liked sleepin’ late anyway.”


	5. ...that preys upon the day...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frances struggles to come to terms with the news, and Cletus finds out.  
> Warning: The subject of Abortion comes up.  
> Personally, I'm pro-choice. But this is Frances we're talking about here. Neither she nor Cletus are mentally stable people, and they're in prison on life sentences. Neither of them has family. They both have experienced what it's like in the care system, never mind what might happen to the child of a mutant and a alien bonded human should people get wind of it's real identity.  
> Abortion would probably be the kindest option.  
> However, we'll see what actually happens as the fic goes on.

_Eight Months ago, At an undisclosed mega-prison for the super-powered population._

 

“How exactly did you miss this during her incoming examination? It should have shown up in her blood work--”

 

“I’m...I’m not sure, sir.”

 

“It’s sloppy work, Dr Perkins, you do realize this is the sort of mistake I usually fire people for.”

 

“Yes sir...usually, sir?”

 

“Yes usually. Have you worked out how Shriek’s pregnancy went undetected?”

 

“Not yet sir. I’ve been working with the bio-division to see if there’s some reason it didn’t show up in her blood work. We’re trying to determine if it’s due to Ms Barrison’s mutation or...the Father’s unique situation.”

 

“Have you tested to make certain it is actually Carnage’s spawn in there?”

 

Doctor Marian Perkins frowned at a point over her boss’ shoulder, unwilling to make eye contact with such an unpleasant man. “I think it’s important to distinguish that it would be Mr Kasady’s _genetics_ passed on to the offspring. Implying it’s Carnage’s spawn rather makes it sound like Ms Barrison is harbouring a _symbiote_ , and that would be another issue _entirely_ -”

 

The broad shouldered, grim face of the Prison Warden grimaced at this. “Semantics, Dr Perkins.”

 

“No really, because if it were a symbiote this would be far more complicated. As it is, it appears to be a human fetus. It’s early, but it seems to be healthy and developing at a normal rate-”

 

The Warden actually looked disappointed at this. “It’s normal?”

 

“Wha- what? Yes. It’s...it’s a perfectly normal fetus.”

 

“...Boring.”

 

The young doctor did a double take. Surely he didn’t want more symbiotes running around? But then again, with a resigned sigh, Perkins realised that he probably was hoping to profit somehow. This place really was the worst. “Sorry to disappoint?”

 

“No..no...so what is our next step?”

 

“Well, Ms Barrison knows. I’m not entirely certain what our next course of action should be. We’ve never had a pregnant inmate before. She’ll most likely serve her life sentence here, and since both she and Mr Kasady are orphans with no family members on the outside...I doubt they’d want that child in the system, considering their respective case histories...I suppose we could give them the option to abort--”

 

“That would require them to have to have a conversation about it.”

 

“I’m fairly certain it’s actually just Ms Barrison to have the final say in this matter.”

 

“Oh yes, of course.” The Warden’s voice sounded quite far away and distant, as if he hadn’t actually heard her.

 

“...Would it be possible to have some experts come in to handle this? I’m not certain that my team and I would be able to deal with the psychological fallout of this situation. They may end up destroying themselves in order to deal with it.”

 

The warden grunted and moved to stand at the two way mirror overlooking the med-ward. “Sounds expensive. To be quite honest with you, Doctor this is a very unusual situation. I’m going to have to talk to the board of directors about all this.” He paused, pressing a fat hand against the glass. “How far along is she?”

 

Perkins looked down at her notes. “...Two months, give or take a few weeks. If you want to give her the option to abort, then you’ll need to have that conversation with the Directors in the next few weeks.”

 

“Hmph.”

 

______

 

With a thin sheet pulled up over her head, Frances pulled her legs up to her chest. They’d unbound her yesterday, but she still had a cuff keeping her to the bed. Not that she wanted to escape anymore.

 

Maybe if she curled up tight enough she could disappear. She used to try, oh so hard when she was a girl, pulling the comforter over the sides of her bed, crawling underneath with a flashlight. The roar of her parents shouting was drowned out, the sirens outside, the static of late night infomercials from her insomniac neighbours.

 

Quiet.

 

Of course, when she got older, the quiet meant other things. Bad things. Hands slapped over her mouth, hands gripping her hips until she bruised.

She didn’t like the quiet anymore.

 

Chipped nails caressed a stomach with no visible lump. Wasn’t she supposed to have a lump? Was there something wrong with her? One more thing that she couldn’t get right?

 

How is it that _now_ she was pregnant? After all these years.

 

She’d just assumed she’d never have real kids. Idly, as she scratched at her shock collar, she considered just how lucid this train of thought was. When was the last time she seriously anything as much thought as she was the unborn life inside her?

 

She didn’t like it much. Pain was welling up behind her eyes until she could feel tears pricking, threatening to slide down her pale cheeks. The tell tale sign of a scream was bubbling up in her throat and just as she opened her mouth the searing fizzle of negating power drowned the Shriek out before it could be released.

 

Her throat felt raw. Instead of the numb sensation of disassociation, her mind continued to loop that same familiar pain, and the feedback cycle continued.

 

She was silenced.

 

Just before she passed out, a single lucid thought wrenched a dry hacking laugh out of her.

 

_This can’t be good for the baby..._

 

____________________

 

“Mr Kasady?”

 

Cletus didn’t bother opening his eyes.

 

Tuesday again. Two hours til community time in the land of two bit mutant thugs far far below him in the lower levels of the prison. There was no need to be awake yet.

 

“Have him properly secured for the meeting, we need the two of them to be cognisant before the specialist gets here.”

 

That got his attention. But he still didn’t open his eyes.

 

Two of them huh?

 

**_They must mean both of us._ **

 

_Yeah Red, I got that part. Whatcha think it is this time? Billionaire wantin’ to harvest your babies? Idiot thinking he can separate us...again?_

 

**_Cult wanting to worship us?_ **

 

_Oh that was a fun one!_

 

**_Maybe this is the time to escape?_ **

 

Cletus hesitated before answering, which gave Red all the ammunition it needed to tease it’s other.

 

**_Oh how sweet, Cletus Kasady. You want to check up on your woman._ **

 

_She hasn’t been returned to her cell in a week._

 

**_Perhaps she-_ **

 

  1. _You know she’s too mean to die! She’s like-_



 

**_-Like you, I know. I was there, remember?_ **

 

Around him, Cletus was vaguely aware of the bed he was strapped to being covered in a field of sonic energy. A muscle in his neck flinched, and he grit his teeth.

 

Every jerk of the bed during his transit to wherever the hell they were taking him had him flinching. Sure it wouldn’t hurt him anymore, but that didn’t mean he was looking to get too cozy with the damn thing. Besides, even with all the unwanted bedrest, they’d kept his prison meals down to the absolute minimum, leaving him weak. If he wanted to escape here eventually, he’d need to save his strength.

 

Or, as he’d been counting on, hope that Shriek, in the lower levels of the prison, had enough juice in her to bust them both out.

 

“...and make sure she’s still secure. She might be in a more cooperative mood but that doesn’t mean she won’t try to take advantage of this situation.”

 

“Doctor, why are we doing this--”

 

“---Give them this kind of treatment- like they aren’t monsters--”

 

“That’s enough! I’m not going to hear another word about this. We’ve been given our orders by the directors. Orders are orders. Now get him into the room.”

_Now, what’s that all about?_

 

He felt himself being raised back into a vertical position, letting his head loll onto his chest for good measure.

 

“Mr Kasady?”

 

The same voice giving the orders came out of some speaker to the side of him. He made a big show of yawning and looking around dozily, before smacking his lips loudly, putting on a big shit eating grin.

 

“What’s up doc?”

 

He was in a small room, triple reinforced door, no ventilation, no drains. On one wall was the prerequisite two way mirror, with the speaker that had just spoken. On the other was a window, facing an identical room, with nothing but a white chair in the centre.

 

A groan came from the speaker to his left.

 

“Never heard that one before.” Came the dry response.

 

“Sorry I’m not up to date on my pop culture, there, doc, but it kinda slips past ya when ya ain’t been out in the world for a while.”

 

“Mr. Kasady, we are affording you this visit with the strict understanding that should this not go well, you won’t be afforded another. The Board was quite clear that were it not for this special circumstance, we wouldn’t be allowing you ANY interaction with Gen Pop or the outside world.”

 

“I’ve got a visitor? Who’s nutso enough to want to chat it up with me?”

 

The speaker didn’t answer him. Instead there was a beep and the heavy clunk of a door being unlocked from the other room.

 

And in walked Shriek.

 

“Baby?”

 

She looked up as he called out to her, then rushed to the glass separating them, her palms pressed against it.

 

“Cletus!”

 

He strained against his bonds for a moment but yelped when his arm accidentally brushed against the sonic field. He glared at the two way mirror.

 

“Real nice, making a man dyin’ of thirst to have to just look at a tall drink of water like her from a cage!”

 

“Cletus, baby, please just listen ok? I don’t know how much time we've got.”

 

The urgency in her voice was palpable. And when he turned back to her he noticed just how worn she looked. Back when she’d carried the Carrion virus, he’d had to watch her be wheeled down the hall through Ravencroft, getting sicker and sicker. She didn’t look that bad now, but her eyes were ringed with red, the only semblance of humanity left in her ghost white face. Was she sick or somethin’? Why’d they wheel him down her just to see her be sick?

 

“Frances...what’d they do to you, huh? I saw you puking your guts out last week. Tell me it was just from the shitty food.”

 

She chuckled weakly, learning her head against the cool pane separating them. He saw her breath fog up the glass, and she drew a little heart.

 

“Nah, it’s nothin they did ta me...actually it’s...what you did to me.”

 

“I’ve been strapped to this thing for weeks, babe. I ain’t done nothing to you.”

 

“Cletus...I’m pregnant.”


	6. ...Red is for the blood that flows like rivers in our veins...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cletus deals with the news.
> 
> If ya thought this was going to be a fluffy happy story, you're sadly mistaken.

They’d returned Cletus to his cell after he’d asked to be removed from the room.

 

It hadn’t been his first impulse. 

 

No, his first impulse was to scream. At her, at himself. At the goddamn universe because if there ever was a time for him kill her, this would be it.

 

She had life growing inside her. 

 

The very antithesis of what he, Cletus Kasady, Serial killer and the embodiment of chaos, was all about.

 

He’d ignored her tearful wails and pleading as they wheeled him back to his cell. She never could just give him a goddamn second to himself.

 

_ She’s a weakness. _

 

All along, every stolen moment with her, in their fucked up parody of a relationship, it made him happy. Like being friends with Billy as a kid. Killing them would preserve that happiness, keep it safe forever. Save them from this sick goddamn horror show of a world. He was doing them a kindness.

 

_ A weakness. _

 

Snuff it out. Take her darkness, relish it in, absorb it into his own being.

 

When she used her powers on him it enhanced the pleasure, the satisfaction of taking a life, of the screams and bloodshed. The lick of dark empathy up his spine is what led him to her cell, the amplification of everything he thrived on. And watching her work, he felt kinship and inspiration. Not that he’d use those fancy college words.

 

_ She screams her pain as death and hatred. I like that. _

 

He loved her.

 

_ Weakness. _

 

She was supposed to be the last. When he lay with her cradled against his chest, in the backseat of a piece of shit car, lost in thought about what he wanted, he saw her standing with him as the world burned around them, everyone dead but them. 

 

Then he’d end her. The ultimate kindness. 

 

_ Weak. _

 

A child.

 

_ Red? _

 

**_Yes, Cletus Kasady?_ **

 

_...We...you… _

 

**_We don’t coddle our offspring, Cletus Kasady._ ** The symbiote sounded bitter for a moment. **_Our progenitor didn’t exactly nurture us._ **

 

_ Just release ‘em into the wild, huh? See how they turn out? _

 

**_They acquire better skills and their own identity better that way. Eliminate the weakness of the parent._ ** It sounded smug. **_We are better than Venom, afterall._ **

 

Cletus considered this. Eliminate the weakness of the parent.

 

**_That would be a long waiting game, provided the childbirth goes according to plan._ **

 

It would. Cletus could feel the empty pit that had opened in his chest since his meeting with Shriek fill with incredulous laughter. The guards assigned to him clutched their guns a little more tightly as that laughter escaped.

 

**_You would kill her._ **

 

_ Kinda Ironic. _

 

**_That isn’t the definition of Irony, Cletus Kasady._ **

 

_ Not sure either of us know what the definition is, Red. _

 

It’d be fitting really. Give her exactly what she wants, the child she wants so badly. The kindness he always wanted to give her. 

 

And then have the brat finish the job.


	7. Veto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baby names, amiright?

“Ms Barrison, if you carry this child to term, you have our utmost assurance that we will find it a loving home.”

 

Frances gave the lawyers sitting across from her a look that could cut glass. She hadn’t slept much since her meeting with Cletus. She’d barely stopped crying long enough to notice they’d transferred her to a new cell, on the top floor of the prison. Closer to the Med Bay the squirrelly little Doctor had told her. 

 

Closer to him, not that she had the guts to tell Frances that..

 

And Frances could always tell when Cletus was near. The fun thing about the nullification collar, was that whilst it did prevent her from reaching out to boost the dark feelings of those around her, the incoming waves of malevolence from others still hit her at full force.

 

Nieves had pointed this out when she’d first assessed Frances as a patient. Kafka had been too busy dealing with the imminent closing of the Ravencroft facility to attend to everyone’s individual needs.

 

She blearily looked around her new cell. Three solid walls of concrete and a single triple reinforced glass pane across the front. 

 

“The first class A-class Villain treatment, huh?” Frances scoffed.

 

“Well...no.” Squirrel Doc muttered, after noting down Frances’ blood pressure on a chart. “Technically anyone classed as a world threat gets transferred to the Raft.”

 

“Carny told me about that place. Ain’t exactly the most secure of places.”

 

The Doctor tutted and continued writing. “It’s under new management.”

 

“Why ain’t Carnage there then?”

 

“I would have thought you’d preferred to be in the same facility.”

 

Frances huffed and shrugged her arm out of the doctor’s grip. 

 

“No witty response?”

 

“Just leave me alone, Doc.”

 

________________________________

 

_**Five Months ago, Same Undisclosed Prison, Another Tuesday.** _

 

“You’re...filling out those scrubs real nice, hon.”

 

“Cut the crap Carnage.” Frances folded her arms over her mild baby bump, her hair scraped back into a high ponytail. She looked healthier.

 

He wished he could say the same. They still hadn’t increased his food intake. Starving him. 

 

The cowards were trying to kill him in the most bullshit way possible. Not that it would work.

 

But looking at Frances, all glowing and perfect, swelling with his life inside her...Conflicted would be a good word for how he felt.

 

He noted the red welts at her neck, and the myriad of bandages around her wrists. Well. She wasn’t happy.

 

“Back to Carnage, huh? Frances, we’re well past that.”

 

“It took you three whole months to figure that out, huh?”

 

“I needed time to process it, Frances, it’s a lot to take. You just kinda threw it out at me out of nowhere-”

 

“We’ve been together for fucking 25 years you dipshit!”

 

“More apart than together.”

 

“Well why don’t you go back to your cell and waste away for the remainder of our 26th year?” She stood up, knocking the chair back with a loud screech. He could see the swell of her stomach more clearly than ever. “I’ll come see ya when your bony old corpse gets eaten by the symbiote.”

 

**_Who wants to eat bones?_ **

 

_ I don’t know, you can make soup though. _

 

**_Oh because that’s what we want after months of nothing but that slop they feed us. Kasady Soup._ **

 

“I thought maybe, Tommy?”

 

Frances paused, about to knock on the door to alert the guard she wanted to leave. Her ponytail bobbed as she turned sharply back to face Cletus.

 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

 

Cletus shrugged as best he could with his arms torso still bound to the slab they’d wheeled him in on. “Tommy if it’s a boy. Thomas. I guess. Better fuckin’ name than Cletus junior right?”

 

She looked curious, her hand still raised to knock. “...Tommy?”

 

“Yeah. I mean. A name is a good place to start right?”

 

_________________________________

 

“Veto’d… How about, Freddy? Works for a boy or a girl.”

 

“Oh and Tommy doesn’t? Veto’d. Carrie for a girl?”

 

“Ha! Only if she gets my shitty genetics. I like it though, I’ll write it down later.”

 

“They let you have a pen? Swanky.”

 

“So long as I don’t try to have another ‘little accident’. Lydia?”

 

“No, fuck no, knew a girl in high school with that name. Veto’d. Ash? Works for a boy or a girl.”

 

“Ha. Nice. Yeah ok, maybe. Norman?”

 

“Pfft, yeah because that’s just what you want right?”

 

“You sick fuck...But hey. A boy’s best friend is his mother, after all.”

 

“You’re so predictable, Frances. Norma for a girl?”

 

“The fucking legend continues in the grand-kid?”

 

“Love how your mind works, babes.”

 

___________________________________________

 

Doctor Perkins was fascinated watching the easy back and forth. Carnage had been unresponsive mere days ago. Shriek had been adamant about not seeing or talking about her situation for weeks, torn between writing furiously in the journal they’d allowed her to keep, and trying to hurt herself.

 

But now they were easily trading baby names as if they were just a normal couple expecting their first child. Only... one parent was strapped down to a medical cot and the other was behind a thick sheet of reinforced ballistic grade plastic. They were laughing, sharing inside jokes, and flirting as if three months of not seeing one another hadn’t even happened. As if they weren’t incarcerated. 

 

As if they were actually going to get to raise the child themselves.

 

And yet they made no plans to escape and when they reviewed the tapes of the meeting later, their experts found no hidden codes in their conversation. 

 

They just seemed...genuinely happy to spend time in one another’s company.

 

Like any other expecting parents.


	8. Unreliable Sources

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which several former members of the Ravencroft staff debate Cletus' origin story.

**_68 months ago, Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, Break Room._ **

 

“That’s ridiculous. Doctor Kafka founded the Institute only ten years ago. Before that, it was a product of the Deinstitutionalization movement in the 50s. The remaining former patients were long gone by the time he was born. Ergo, He couldn’t have been born in Ravencroft.”

 

“Huh.” Tanis sipped her coffee in thought. Before her on the rickety old coffee table were pages of notes and piles of patient histories. She was quickly learning that a lot of the former staff members hadn’t bothered properly filing most of the files she’d needed for her assignment with Miss Barrison. She’d pulled a particularly rambling account from the original Kasady case study from behind a radiator in a leaky storeroom somewhere in the basement. “So you’re saying he made that part up?”

 

“Uh… Duh?”

 

“And just why do you think that? Why would Doctor Pazzo spend an inordinate amount of time recording this rambling story if it’s all fake?”

 

“Because it’s good evidence of his out of control narcissism, Tanis!” Ted slapped the island counter. “Look, if there’s one thing you can glean from that chicken scratch of Pazzo’s, it’s that the man loves to talk about himself. Of course he’d make up a bullshit claim like he was born in these walls, it pumps up his importance, makes him feel like he’s born of the “very chaos of the universe”- It’s so fucking textbook.”

 

“I mean. It makes a good story at least, you must admit that, Ted.”

 

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean you need to give it more thought than it deserves.”

 

“He’s dead, Ted. Up in space? You saw the report right?”

 

“Hence why you should be working harder on improving Barrison’s current state. Help her see that Kasady is in the past, and she should focus on regaining her sanity.” Ted sighed and pushed his half eaten lunch away from him. “How is she doing?”

 

Tanis shrugged, tapping the edge of the table with her pen. “She’s...still resistant. But we’re making some real progress. I’m more concerned if all these talks of the buyout from Hall Industries will disrupt things.”

 

“I don’t trust it at all. Big corporations like that always want to use powered folk for their own uses. I’d get out whilst you still can, Nieves.”

 

Looking stricken, Tanis shook her head, and began pulling piles of documents into her lap. “I couldn’t do that to Frances. She needs me.”

 

“You’re fighting a losing cause there. Barrison’s issues are too tightly wound into her powers for her to ever make any substantial stabilisation.”

 

_________________

 

_**312 months ago, Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, (the same) Break Room.** _

 

“Pazzo, what the hell is this supposed to be?”

 

Doctor Pazzo flinched as a thick folder was slapped onto the brand new coffee table in front of her. Before her, the polished glasses of Doctor Ashley Kafka glinted dangerously from the fluorescent overhead lights.

 

The blonde doctor tittered nervously, pushing stringy hair back behind her ears. “Um. My report of Patient Kasady, Madame Director?”

 

“Barely readable garbage, Pazzo. I sent everyone a memo saying that these reports need to be typed and backed up onto both the computer and floppy disc.”

 

“Oh...should I...I should go type it up then--”

 

“Don’t. Bother.” Kafka pinched the bridge of her nose. “This isn’t worth preserving. Your notes need to be concise. No-one wants to read twenty five pages of Kasady proclaiming to be greatest Serial in the goddamn universe. Simplify it. Keep it to a brief description. We /record/ those sessions on Video Tape for a reason, Pazzo.”

 

“Oh...Y-yes of course.”

 

“And be very careful about your phrasing. You realize that you implied you believed his story about his mother giving birth to him here. I appreciate that you’re new here, but here’s a free tip- You’re a medical professional. One phone call to the Hospital, or even a cursory glance at the Man’s birth certificate, and you can verify where he was born.”

 

“B-but...I just...he said-”

 

Doctor Kafka glared at the other woman. “Pazzo, this building was derelict for 15 years before we began converting it into the Institute. Kasady was born in Brooklyn at the  New York Methodist Hospital in 1969. The former Asylum had been closed for 19 years. Do I make myself clear?”

 

_________________________

 

**_588 months ago, New York Methodist Hospital, Maternity Ward._ **

 

Louise softly touched the tuft of red hair peeking out from warm woollen blankets. A tiny nose was scrunched up in apparent distress, small fists curled in protest of the flash of lightning outside the window.

 

“I’m sorry Clete.” She shushed the tiny disgruntled lump in her arms as she tucked him up into her arms, easing herself back onto the hospital bed. “I guess if I were a better woman I’d run away with ya and keep ya safe from him.”

 

Her eyes flickered warily to the door. Two figures were shadowed there, arguing in hushed voices about the ‘mistakes’ inside the room. ‘Ruined your life’ ‘Never should have shacked up with her.’ ‘Knew she’d be the end of ya.’ ‘Too much of a coward to do nothin.’

 

A small pathetic whimper came from the bundle and Louise pulled him closer to her chest, pulling her legs up to barricade them away from the noise.

 

“I’m so sorry Clete…I’m just gunna end up hurtin’ ya too...”

 

_________________

 

When you work with an unreliable source, your stone cold iron clad facts are the only real tool you’ll have to count on.

 

And usually, Doctor’s reports are a great wealth of information, even as coloured by the author’s perception as they can be.

 

Unfortunately, this Reporter can only have this to say. “Ravencroft never could get their stories straight when it came to Cletus Kasady.”

 

It varied from Doctor to Doctor on what exactly the man’s diagnosis was, which prevented both any serious attempt at the rehabilitation Kafka was so fond of, and why he was constantly transferred there in lieu of more secure facility. 

 

The Infamous “Pazzo File”, which this Reporter had the privilege of reading, is frankly, a mess. It’s clumsily written but of course contextually, makes sense. Of course Kasady would reinvent his past, and of course, if he truly believed that was how he came to be, it would be a valuable asset to confirm any one of the many diagnoses he’s had over the years.

 

It also serves to damn the “Insanity Defence.”

 

Regardless, this Reporter felt it important to include this footnote on the Pazzo File. And how it pays to fact check your work before you declare it finished.


End file.
